An open collection of baseball's little-known records and curiosities.

"He would have been among the league leaders in batting average for a majority of the season had he had enough plate appearances." -- 2008 St. Louis Cardinals Media Guide about non-roster invitee Mark Johnson

Thursday, January 31, 2008

First Basemen Hitting Both Ways?

This is related to the previous post about switch-hitting catchers. Given that first basemen have usually been guys who mash the ball and there haven't been all that many power-hitting switch-hitters, it perhaps makes sense there haven't been many first baseman who have hit both ways. Only twenty-four players in baseball history batted from both sides and spent over half their career games at first place. One is a Hall of Famer (Eddie Murray) and three are active players (take a guess before looking at the list).

Most Career PA by a Switch-Hitting First Baseman

Eddie Murray, 12817

Lu Blue, 7207

David Segui, 5449

Tony Clark, 4858

Wes Parker, 4835

Walter Holke, 4833

Ripper Collins, 4205

Dan McGann, 4101

Mark Teixeira, 3246

Todd Benzinger, 3106

Candy LaChance, 2395

Johnny Neun, 1083

Myron Grimshaw, 979

Orestes Destrade, 866

Chuck Stevens, 844

Kendry Morales, 341

Joe Mack, 303

Burt Hart, 233

Dick Kauffman, 148

Drew Denson, 44

Bert Graham, 27

John Smith, 17

Sap Randall, 15

Ron Allen, 14

Tony Clark is almost halfway to the home run record among switch-hitting first baseman (he has 244; Murray had 504). I didn't realize he even had that many. Teixeira is third with 170 career homers.